| We've
spoken to a lot of gamblers who talk about enco
with pit bosses. These players imagine that everyone
in the pit, the area behind the tables, watching
the action, is a pit boss. But that's not so. They
are floormen, who work under the pit boss.
A pit may consist of six craps tables or nine blackjack
tables placed in an oval arrangement so that the
men inside that area can supervise the action easily.
Some casinos have one pit for each game, while the
giant houses may have several casino blackjack pits
spread all over the casino.
Other casinos may mix up a pit, placing craps tables
and blackjack tables together, but the casinos that
do this have foolish men in charge, for each game
requires its own expertise and it's nearly impossible
to properly supervise a craps game and a blackjack
game at the same time. The action is very different,
the players are different, and, therefore, the supervision
must be different.
In each pit, there is one pit boss for every shift.
He works under the supervision of the shift boss,
and each pit boss is responsible for the action,
cash flow, and bankroll in that pit alone. The legendary
Vegas pit boss is a hardened man with underworld
connections, for the name "pit boss" invariably
conjures up that image, but the pit bosses We've
met are often high school graduates who've moved
up the long hard way.
Many, now that the corporations are in full control,
are college educated. Their main qualifications,
though we may be getting a little rough here, is
to look suspicious and jaded.
Pit bosses perform an important function in the
casino be-cause they are the highest of the executives
with a specific area to control, and if that area
is losing money or something is wrong in the pit,
the trouble can be pinpointed and the blame laid
on a specific individual's shoulders.
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